History

One of the logs from a  dead ash felled in 2019.  Can just about distinguish 28 rings, going back to, say, 1991, which was 4 years after planting, so maybe 1.5m above ground level.  The rings continued to widen every year up until about 2009 and the subsequent reducing annual growth was presumably the effect of ash dieback in the upper parts of the tree.

In that peak year the ring is about 3mm wide, adding 6mm diameter to a 6 cm diameter at that time - a 10% increase in volume assuming the same proportionate increase up the whole length of the tree.  Assuming this girth was at the median cross section of a 6m high tree (cone of wood),  the tree added about 10% to its volume of around 0.07m3, i.e. 0.007m3 of increment. The  2400 ash trees in the wood together added about 16m3 of wood to their above ground bulk.  Adding 20% extra wood for the roots, gives 19.5 m3 added in total.  At a specific gravity of 0.85 this gives  16.6 metric tons added in a year.  Take away 35% of the weight which is water and half of the remainder is carbon, so 16.7 metric tons of fresh ash wood contains 5.4 metric tons of carbon  (equivalent to 19.8 metric tons of CO2).

I wonder how far down the runway that would get a modern passenger jet?

In order to carbon offset a flight, | wonder what the effect on the aviation industry would be if one had to plant and grow the trees and capture the carbon BEFORE you were allowed to take off.